


#soulmatehyung

by hailait



Category: Beast (Band), Infinite (Band), K-pop, KARA (Band)
Genre: F/M, M/M, TiMER AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-24
Updated: 2014-10-24
Packaged: 2018-02-22 09:10:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2502335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hailait/pseuds/hailait
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Junhyung had spent the last ten years of his life with a blank TiMER on his wrist, and he had grown to accept the idea that this "soulmate" business wasn't for him. Fate disagreed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Worst First Teaching Experience Had by Anyone in the Teaching Business, Ever

Junhyung had no idea what the beeping sound was when he heard it go off while he was grocery shopping. He assumed it was his phone, but he had no missed calls or messages waiting for him when he checked it. He brushed it off, assuming he had heard someone else get a message instead, and didn't realize what had happened until he was at home, washing his hands in preparation for making dinner. _01:04:51:20_ the TiMER read, the display changing as each second passed. One day, he'd be meeting his soulmate in just one more day.

That would be Monday, the day he was going to start work at the nearby high school as an English teacher; maybe that was when he would meet his soulmate. He pictured her as a coworker, an art teacher with long hair and pretty eyes, a dazzling smile that was directed at him. If his soulmate was similar to his vision of her, he knew he'd be happy with her, and his ten years of waiting would be worth it.

He meant to sleep shortly after midnight, but the zeroes on his TiMER were keeping him from relaxing. He felt like an idiot; just a few days ago, he'd been perfectly content being alone, his TiMER seemingly perpetually blank, but as he laid there in bed he was excited, the anticipation of meeting his coworker soulmate at the morning staff meeting almost too much to bear.

He woke up late after falling asleep late, and despite rushing through his normal routine, showed up a few minutes past the hour. Dozens of pairs of eyes turned to look at him, and he looked at each one in return, but the TiMER on his wrist stayed silent. He took his seat and the principal began speaking again, only to be interrupted by another tardy teacher, this time a beautiful young woman. That was her, that was his soulmate, Junhyung was convinced.

In her hurry to sit down without drawing much attention to herself, she didn't notice the way Junhyung was staring at her. It wasn't until the new teacher was asked to stand up and introduce himself that she looked at him, their eyes finally meeting, and...nothing. Maybe his TiMER was broken. He quickly himself, and the meeting came to an end. Maybe...maybe if he tried again...

"Hello!" a warm voice greeting him as he turned to leave. Their eyes met again—still nothing.  "I'm Goo Hara, the geometry teacher. Welcome to Whimoon!" She was everything he had hoped she would be, but she wasn't his soulmate. Still, nobody ever said he could only see his soulmate. A quick check of her wrist told him that she was three months from meeting her soulmate. She must have noticed him looking, because she quickly commented on his TiMER. "Oh, you're meeting your soulmate today! Congratulations! I still have a ways to go, and it's making me so nervous." With her last comment, she gathered her things and left; presumably to go to her class, which was what Junhyung should have been doing. He followed her out but walked several steps behind her, disappointed that she wasn't his one and that she so wanted to meet her own one.

After several minutes of wandering around, he found his classroom and prepared for the class by speaking English to himself until the students started filing in. He introduced himself in English (my name is Yong Junhyung, I'm twenty-five years old, I spent the last few years studying in America) then had the students do the same. All but one introduced themselves with varying degrees of fluency; the only one who didn't had his head down, apparently sleeping. Just Junhyung's luck that he would wind up with the school's delinquent.

He chose to ignore it until the end of the class came and the student was still sleeping in the back while all the others were out taking a short break between classes. Junhyung walked to the back corner of the classroom, pulling the hood off the kid's head and glancing at the name sloppily pinned to his hoodie rather than the uniform under it. "Hey, Kim Myungsoo. Class is over," he said, his English bringing out the annoyed tone in his voice. "I don't care," the student grumbled back in heavily accented English, lifting his head to shoot the teacher a look to emphasize his words.

The sound of high-pitched beeping filled the air, their TiMERs playing a tune to announce that they had just met their soulmates. Junhyung thought it had to have been some sort of cruel joke; if it wasn't, he was probably going to be sick. How could this bratty kid be his soulmate? The attitude was suddenly gone though, replaced by a surprising cuteness as the boy smiled, greeting him with a nauseating "Soulmate Hyung!" before latching onto him. Oh yes, Junhyung was definitely going to be sick.

"Kim Myungsoo, let—" Junhyung didn't have to finish the command, because Myungsoo was already releasing him, his phone in one hand and Junhyung's wrist in the other. Junhyung didn't process what was happening until Myungsoo had taken the picture and was in the process of posting it to his Instagram account with the caption of "my #soulmatehyung." Junhyung tried to stop him from uploading it, but it was a little too late; the image was already posted on the SNS. He quickly prayed that Myungsoo didn't have many friends in the class who followed him, but a glance at his profile before Myungsoo closed the app revealed that he had a few thousand followers. Junhyung was going to lose his job over this, he just knew it.

"Hey, Soulmate Hyung," Myungsoo started as he followed Junhyung down the hall like an excited puppy, "did you wait long? My dad finally let me get my TiMER this weekend. He doesn't believe in this sort of thing but I told him, I told him I just knew I would be meeting my soulmate soon and I needed a TiMER to confirm it." God, he was so annoyingly chatty, Junhyung wanted to slap him silly. But he couldn't very well do that in front of his boss.

"Please don't fire me," was the first thing out of his mouth as he picked up Myungsoo's wrist to display the zeroed-out TiMER on his wrist alongside his own. "I didn't want this to happen, and I have no interest in dating any of my students." He was sincere in his plea, but apparently it wasn't enough. "Folks usually wind up with the person their TiMER tells them is their soulmate these days," Principal Kim mused, seeming unsure of his decision. "We can't very well remove him from the class, as he is a senior and it is imperative that he take all the classes in his schedule. We'll have to meet with the board to determine if you can maintain your position."

It wasn't what Junhyung wanted to hear, but it was significantly better than being fired right away. This had to have been the worst first teaching experience had by anyone in the teaching business, ever. Myungsoo followed him out of the principal's office, quieter than before. "Are you sure?" he asked when he caught up to Junhyung, tugging on his sleeve. "Are you sure you don't…want me…as your soulmate?"

"Of course I'm sure!" Junhyung shouted, his voice louder than he meant it to be. "Why would I want to date the bratty kid who slept through my class? I wanted my soulmate to be Hara." The words were leaving his mouth right as he noticed Hara walking toward them. Really, how could he have possibly sunk lower than rock bottom? She clearly hear what he had said, as her cheeks turned a soft pink as she met Junhyung's eyes. She ducked her head to excuse herself, walking past them.

"The geometry teacher? Oh," Myungsoo breathed out, turning to watch her walk away. "She's so beautiful and she's nice, too. Everyone wants to have her as a teacher." Junhyung turned to watch her as well, lips set in a frown. She would've been the perfect soulmate. Even with her back turned to them, he could tell she was beautiful. "I'm really sorry, Mr. Yong," Myungsoo said quietly when Junhyung looked at him disapprovingly, and it was a relief to hear the kid not call him "Soulmate Hyung" for the first time. "If you don't want anything to do with me, then… I won't hang around you."

He left without another word, and Junhyung thought to himself that maybe, just maybe, things would work out for him. At least he didn't have to worry about a little brat being his soulmate anymore.


	2. When You're Unhappy You Do Shitty Things

Junhyung spent his first few weeks teaching under close scrutiny, all of his higher-ups making sure he gave Myungsoo no special treatment. Junhyung probably graded him a bit more harshly than he should have, seeing as Myungsoo turned out to be a surprisingly good student who caught on easily and tested well, but he didn't want to risk anyone thinking that he was giving Myungsoo a grade he didn't deserve. Myungsoo hadn't spoken to him about anything but the course since he announced he wouldn't be pestering Junhyung anymore, but a quick search on Instagram showed that their picture together was still there with its caption, so he doubted Myungsoo had completely dropped the idea of being with him.

But that wasn't important. He was slowly getting closer to Hara, who was every bit as good of a person as she seemed to be, something that made Junhyung feel worse for wanting to take her from her soulmate. Relationships between teachers were discouraged anyway, though Junhyung doubted anyone would complain about him dating Hara when the alternative was him dating an underage student of his. He tried to exclusively think of her as a close friend, but that fell apart when Hara asked him to meet her for drinks after work one day and Junhyung answered with an enthusiastic agreement. Who could have said no to Hara? She was technically waiting for her soulmate, but that didn't mean that she wasn't allowed to choose anyone she happened to be more interested in.

A little over a month after Junhyung became Hara's coworker, the pair started dating. Junhyung couldn't help but to consider her his real soulmate, though the TiMER on her wrist reminded him every time they held hands that there was someone else out there who was better suited for her. It would have been fine if only he hadn't noticed the way she looked at her TiMER, clearly longing to meet that person. After two weeks, he broke up with her, knowing that though she was obviously upset at the time she would meet her soulmate in less than two months and when she did, she'd be thankful she was single.

"I thought you wanted to date her, how could you break up with her?" Myungsoo asked, surprising Junhyung after class. He stared at the student before sighing. "It's none of your business if your teachers are or aren't dating. I have to go to my ne—" Myungsoo cut him of with a quick, "I told her to ask you out." Junhyung found himself staring again, trying to determine how serious he was. Had Hara really asked him out because Myungsoo had said something to her? It seemed silly. "I wanted you to be happy. If you didn't want to be with me, I wanted to at least make sure you were with someone who would make you happy. And you ruined that, you idiot," he said, his casual tone making Junhyung's eyebrows rise.

"She has a soulmate, Myungsoo, I can't keep her from being with him." Myungsoo leaned over the table, his face uncomfortably close to Junhyung's. "I have a soulmate too. It doesn't always work out." With that, he popped his hood up and went to the back of the classroom where he turned his seat into his nap space. Junhyung wanted to say something to him, but he didn't know what, so he gathered his things and moved on to the next classroom.

He started dating Hara again; not exclusively, only casually, and with the mutual understanding that their relationship would come to an end before Hara's TiMER zeroed out. Every second he spent with her made him want to spend a lifetime with her, but they stopped seeing each other again when she had three weeks left to go.

And Myungsoo finally talked to Junhyung again, about something other than English. "You need to stop dating her only to break up with her, it's making both of you unhappy. And when you're unhappy you do shitty things like this," he said, holding up the paper that had been returned to him during class. C-. Junhyung knew he didn't deserve that grade and instantly felt bad for grading him so harshly. "I'll grade everyone's papers again," he promised, leaning back in his seat with a sigh.

Myungsoo went around his desk and joined him in his seat, sitting sideways on his lap and pressing his face to his neck. Junhyung knew he should've pushed him off immediately, but Myungsoo started speaking before he could. "Please be happy," Myungsoo mumbled against his skin, the vibrations tickling Junhyung's neck. He opened his mouth to tell Myungsoo how inappropriate it was for him to be sitting on his teacher's lap, but Myungsoo was already on his way to his feet.

"Why aren't you dating him?" Hara asked when they were out drinking that night, after listening to Junhyung talk about their encounter earlier. "He cares about you so much, you could really do a lot worse." Her words were starting to run together, but she insisted that she didn't want to go home early that night. "I could also do much better than my teenage student. If you think Principal Kim would let that pass after I insisted I didn't care about the kid, you're wrong." Hara waved her hand, dismissing his argument. "It's a love story, everyone loves a good love story. He's your soulmate, Junhyung. There's literally no person in the whole world who is better for you than he is."

"You're only saying this because you're drunk," Junhyung said, deciding that was a good time to detach Hara from the bottle of soju in her hand and make the short walk home with her. "If you don't think you could ever be with him, spend the night with me," she told him when they reached her front door. But between her upcoming meeting with her soulmate and his complete disinterest in taking advantage of a drunk girl, Myungsoo was the last thing on his mind as Junhyung tucked Hara into bed and left her apartment.

"Are you happy?" Myungsoo asked Junhyung a few weeks later, catching up with him on his way out from the building. "You've missed your window of opportunity." Junhyung nodded, glancing over at Myungsoo. "Of course I'm happy. She's a good friend, so if she's happy, I am too. But really, you students need to stay out of your teachers' personal lives." Myungsoo followed him down the street to the bus station before grabbing his sleeve, looking for his undivided attention. "If she can be happy with him, why can't you be happy with me?" he asked lowly, looking downright pitiful. "You're my seventeen year-old student, Myungsoo. Unless I missed something, Hara's soulmate isn't one of her underage students."

"I turn eighteen in March," Myungsoo said, face lighting up. "Just wait for me, okay? Just a few months, Soulmate Hyung." Somehow, hearing Myungsoo say it that time was endearing rather than annoying, and he found himself nodding, just as he found Myungsoo all but attached to him until Junhyung insisted that he really had to go home. His thoughts were only on his supposed soulmate as he rode the bus home. In March he would be eighteen, and with the semester ending in another month he would no longer be Myungsoo's teacher. With those problems solved, would it really be so bad if he started seeing Myungsoo?

He didn't make it to March. The minute their last class together was over, Junhyung gave Myungsoo his number and his address and told Myungsoo to call or visit anytime. Technically that was grounds for firing, seeing an underage kid regardless if he was Junhyung's student, but Junhyung didn't expect keeping their relationship—whatever relationship they wound up having— a secret to be too difficult.

Myungsoo was certainly no Hara, but he was lovable in his own way. He had the enthusiasm of a puppy, and for a few weeks there nearly kissed like one. Their relationship wasn't anything like Junhyung imagined his relationship with his soulmate would be, but he quickly grew accustomed to it and even came to like it through all the love Myungsoo showed him, though he constantly had to remind Myungsoo not to post any of the thousands of pictures they took together lest somebody use one to get him fired.

They dated quietly for months, seemingly waiting an eternity for Myungsoo to turn eighteen, but he finally did, and then there was nothing stopping him from uploading endless photos of himself with his #soulmatehyung (aside from the fact that the school still frowned upon it, but Myungsoo was just a few months short of graduation and had stopped caring about what was frowned upon by the school).


End file.
